


Quid Pro Quo

by crocodilepatronus



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-14
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-04 14:23:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1082059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crocodilepatronus/pseuds/crocodilepatronus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After they made love sometimes, Jimmy would ask Thomas questions about himself......</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quid Pro Quo

**Author's Note:**

  * For [camaelczarka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/camaelczarka/gifts).



> one of the lines in this story is taken from a song called "I'll See Your Heart and Raise You Mine". more notes at the end of the fic.

After they made love sometimes, Jimmy would ask Thomas questions about himself. He supposed that was normal- when you’re with someone, you want to know them. But the way he went about it wasn’t exactly normal. It was less like a casual conversation and a bit more like an interrogation. Some of the questions were silly and only required one word answers. Some of them were in depth and led to Thomas having to talk for a long time, with Jimmy just listening with an unreadable expression. Jimmy never responded to Thomas’s answers nor did he ever explain what the meaning behind the questions was.

One night Jimmy lay with his head against Thomas’s chest while Thomas smoked and ran his fingers through his golden hair. It was such beautiful hair. It had various tones in it- some strands were like wheat while others looked like the polished gold of a pocket watch.

 “Do you like snakes, Thomas?”

He’d become so accustomed to the post coital cross-examination that he wasn’t in the least bit surprised by the question.

“In what context?” he asked, watching smoke curl into the air in front of them.

Jimmy shrugged non-comittally without looking up.

Thomas sucked a drag from his cigarette. “I don’t know… Do **_you_** like snakes?”

Every once in a while he would try this. Try to make Jimmy answer a question or elaborate.

“If I tell you then that’s cheating.” Jimmy responded without a hint of playfulness in his tone.

So it was a game then. A game that could be cheated at. He wondered if it was a game that could also be won. Or lost. He wondered if everything was a game to Jimmy. Sometimes it felt like it.

“I don’t think I’d be happy to find one in my bed. But I suppose I like them if they’re out in the wild.”

Jimmy said nothing and didn’t move. That meant he wanted Thomas to elaborate.

“They don’t have any arms and legs but they get on alright. And people are scared of them. So I suppose that’s admirable.”

Jimmy was playful and flirtatious so much of the time but in the bedroom he revealed a very different side of his personality. Thomas had come to understood fairly early on that Jimmy, despite his flirting with Ivy or even Daisy, was not one to take love or affection lightly. For Jimmy it seemed that winking at a girl or even the sly glances he gave Thomas now (when no one was around to see) were far removed from any actual pursuit of romance. Those were a game too and one Jimmy played well but in his head they didn’t seem to connect at all to love or even to sex.

Whenever they were making love Jimmy was nearly _somber_ in attitude and completely concentrated. There was never a doubt that he was enjoying it- that was evident from the way he threw his head back, open mouthed and whispered Thomas’s name, how he chewed his lower lip as he rutted his hips against the older man’s, and how he took him deep into his throat every night, using his tongue as if he was savoring the taste of him. But he was serious through it all. There was never any joking with Jimmy in the bedroom. There was barely a smile out of him.

In contrast, Thomas, whose genuine smiles were few and far between _outside_ of the bedroom, couldn’t contain himself from grinning ear to ear whenever Jimmy came in at midnight and shut the door behind him or when Jimmy snuggled against him after they finished. Which wasn’t every night. Sometimes after they had sex Jimmy would suddenly seem flustered for some reason and walk out of the room without a word, leaving Thomas wondering what he’d done wrong. Every time that happened Thomas was sure he’d lost Jimmy forever. And more than once it had kept him up the entire night in a state of panic. But often the very next morning Jimmy would pull him aside into a dark corner and kiss him passionately and whisper again and again that he was sorry and could he come back that night. Of course Thomas would say yes, trying not to show each time that he was so relieved he could weep.

He felt that Jimmy had a series of hoops he was making Thomas jump through before he deemed him trustworthy. Worthy to bear the burden of Jimmy’s soul and his heart. Which were both a mystery to Thomas despite how closely it felt he observed him. A delightful mystery. He’d never met anyone like Jimmy. Like a book that became more intriguing and suspenseful with every page turned.

Sex had never been something precious to Thomas until he’d had it with him. Sex was fun, wonderful, exciting, an escape, a rebellion even, but never such an intimate expression of unspoken love.

Thomas’s ministrations to Jimmy were reverent and tender and slow. He could spend an entire hour paying worship to Jimmy’s body using only his mouth- pressing his lips against the curve of his hip bone, running the tip of his tongue across the flat plane of his stomach until it dipped inbetween the hard muscles of his abdomen, then sucking gently against every inch of his neck. In many ways they were physical opposites. Jimmy was flaxen haired  and his body was almost completely smooth while Thomas was dark and had a thick growth of hair on his torso. While Thomas was vampirically pale, Jimmy’s skin was golden. Even after days spent shut in the house with barely a breath of fresh air, he still looked like he’d just come from a holiday in a place where the sun shone everyday.

Thomas had thought to himself once that he was like the moon and Jimmy was like the sun. _I like the sun_.

“Was your father upset when he found out you liked men?” Jimmy asked softly.

This was more personal than if he liked snakes. And it wasn’t unusual for Jimmy’s inquiries to take these abrupt turns from casual questions directly into sensitive ones. Thomas wasn’t sure if this was done on purpose- to build him up and get him talking before asking the question he was really interested in, or if Jimmy was equally interested in the short answers as he was in the long ones. Because other times Jimmy would start right away with a tender subject and after hearing the answer to that, follow up with something like ‘have you ever gone swimming in the ocean?’. The shorter questions seemed so insignificant to Thomas but he thought they maybe they held some deeper meaning for Jimmy.

What Thomas feared most at these times was that he would somehow answer incorrectly. That every question was actually a test and he’d managed to pass so far but that any night now he could answer wrong- say he _didn’t_ like snakes or green apples or the ocean, and that somehow this would disillusion Jimmy to him or make him realize they were incompatible. He was even more terrified of answering incorrectly to one of the longer questions that required him to be more vulnerable. He’d already been asked about his war injury and told the story behind that. Jimmy hadn’t run out of the room then so maybe it wasn’t all a test for Thomas. Thomas was beginning to think Jimmy was simply… storing information about him. He couldn’t be sure, and he was very doubtful of himself for thinking this. But if that was the case, he was flattered and in a way it was heart warming. People didn’t usually care to ask about Thomas- not his life, not his interests, not his preferences, or anything else. Even if they had Thomas would probably not answer them. In general he thought it unwise to give away too much information about yourself and he wasn’t the sort to do so freely. Sharing too much is how people get blackmailed- he would know. Thomas went around with an attitude that implied to people that he didn’t care about them and that they shouldn’t try to do so for him. So they didn’t. And most of the time, Thomas was perfectly content with that. He was a loner since childhood- though not by choice always, it had become not only a habit but something that he was accustomed to and therefore preferred. Thomas also thought he had an independent nature. He didn’t like having to rely on others for anything (though it seemed despite all of his best efforts to be self-reliant he always ended up back in a situation where he was doing just that atleast to a certain extent) and that included emotional support. The more people you tell about yourself, the more people you open up to, the weaker you are.

Thomas was slightly ashamed of how easily he gave information up to Jimmy. Perhaps it was the novelty of someone he actually _liked_ wanting to know more about him (for whatever the reason) that made him open up so freely. Perhaps it was because though Thomas generally wished everyone would leave him alone, he secretly liked a bit of attention even if only to reject it. He felt he must be more weak willed than he’d thought to succumb to baring his soul so quickly.

He wished he could’ve said that atleast the first few times Jimmy had asked him things that he’d been more aloof in his answers, not given much away. But it wasn’t true. As soon as Jimmy had asked him a question he’d answered without reserve. He could barely help himself from telling everything to Jimmy.

Now Thomas was at what in any other situation he probably would’ve called a ‘disadvantage’ for Jimmy knew much more about him than he knew about Jimmy. But he thought this might change with time. Jimmy was a very secretive person. In some ways, despite his seemingly comfortable attitude around other people, he was a very **_private_** person as well. Jimmy truly seemed to rely on no one but himself and Thomas was slightly envious of his autonomy.

Thomas hoped that perhaps if he lead by example and allowed himself to open up to Jimmy, that in time Jimmy would do the same for him.

He sucked a drag from his cigarette and thought about the question for a minute more before answering. There were things that Thomas was ashamed of and regretted in his life but they were often not the things that other people probably would’ve been most judgemental of. He felt no great sense of honor in being a war veteran and serving his country but he did feel accomplishment for surviving so long and his truest pride was in escaping the way he had even if others might’ve deemed it cowardice. He wasn’t ashamed of his sexuality either and didn’t for a second believe it was wrong. So when he answered these types of questions for Jimmy he rarely spoke with much hesitation or embarassment once he’d decided what to say.

“My mother was already dead when the rest of the family found it. I think she might’ve known when I was younger, though. Don’t think she cared.” Thomas started, “My father had started drinking a lot. I wasn’t _ashamed_ to tell him but I saw no reason to. My brothers never told him about their girlfriends so why should I tell him that I had boyfriends?”

He inhaled a puff of smoke.

“It was my older brother that found out. He caught me kissing a boy. And then he told our father. He was drunk and… confused. But not angry. He wasn’t angry at all. My brother was the one who did the shouting. He kept saying I was upsetting father but I wasn’t. And then he told me to leave and never come back. Even when my father was pleading with him to let me stay- to atleast hear me out.”

Thomas scoffed. 

“He always acted like he cared about my parents more than anyone, that brother of mine… But he was always pulling their strings. And when our father turned into a drunkard, George- er, my older brother- he took the liberty of making all of the decisions.”

He sighed and stamped his cigarette out in the ashtry on the floor. He felt he’d answered the question adequately and didn’t want to continue on the subject anymore tonight. Jimmy ran his fingertips against Thomas’s side in what Thomas read as a tentative gesture of comfort. For a few minutes they were silent.

“Have you ever been stung by a bee?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you like olives?”

“Yes.” Thomas answered, nodding his head.

“When you were a kid did you ever have like… a comfort object?”

“You mean like a security blanket or something? Don’t think so…”

“I did.”

For a moment Thomas was stunned silent. _Tonight’s the night_ … he thought frantically. _Tonight is the night that Jimmy responds to one of his own questions_. He wasn’t sure what to do or say. He somehow didn’t feel exactly ready though he wasn’t sure what he could do in preparation. He didn’t have to say anything because Jimmy continued talking.

“It was a stuffed rabbit. But I can’t for the life of me remember what I called him. Something ridiculous I’m sure…”

There was a sort of forced casualness in his tone of voice and more than once in the short sentence he seemed to come close to stammering.

Thomas ran his tongue along his lips nervously. _It might be better to leave at that. Don’t push him to say more than he wants._ But on the other hand it could be a rare opportunity. And no harm could be done from trying. Jimmy still had his head rested against Thomas’s chest and he couldn’t see his face.

“Do…do _you_ like olives?” he asked cautiously.

“No.”

This was incredible. Like a miracle of nature. He’d never got this much information out of Jimmy. He wracked his brain desperately for a question he could ask. There were so many things he wanted to know about Jimmy- he wanted to know everything about him. But all that came to his mind to ask were insignificant things.

“Do you ever sleep walk?” he blurted out.

Jimmy laughed once, looking up at Thomas from between his bangs.

“So you heard me?”

Thomas swallowed, nodding. “The other night. Saw you actually. I whispered your name and you didn’t answer back. I was a little worried.”

“I used to do it all the time when I was a kid. Drove me parents mad.” Jimmy said. There was a gentle warmth in his voice that made Thomas feel like his heart was melting.

Thomas searched desperately for more questions, saying whatever came into his head first. He somehow felt the pressure of a time limit even if none existed- like this was a window of opportunity that would never come again in his lifetime.

“Do you like lemon cake?”

“Very much so.” Jimmy’s said it so emphatically that it was adorable. “I like lemon curd too. And lemon tea.”  

Thomas thought he needed to have a cigarette. His first thought was of sucking on Jimmy’s soft lower lip and tasting a sweet zestiness of lemon on him. But it was strangely predictable to him that Jimmy liked lemon things. Jimmy was like that. Sweet and sour interchangeably and often simultaneously.

Jimmy usually didn’t say a word about Thomas’s answers and Thomas wondered if that was some sort of unspoken rule that he would be breaking if he commented on the replies Jimmy gave. He wanted to tell Jimmy how charming he thought him and how even the most trivial things he could learn about him were things he cherished and would probably be thinking about and smiling to himself about for weeks (if not forever).

He swallowed, thinking. He’d asked three trivial, short-answer, questions. Was he allowed to ask something more in-depth? Thomas felt like with Jimmy he was constantly afraid that he would scared him off. Ironic because he felt like he spent so much of his time trying to push other people away.

“Do you like me?” his voice sounded foreign in his ears- higher and weaker than he liked to hear it. His heart hammered in his chest painfully as Jimmy shifted against him, sitting up.

 _I’ve done it now. Said too much_.

Jimmy looked at him with great concern, close to hurt even.

“Of course I do.” he said simply, “I love you.”

He’d never said so. And his first confession of it was done in a tone of voice that implied Thomas was a bit dim for even having to ask. But maybe he was. To not automatically accept that Jimmy loved him without him having to say it. Because of how seriously Jimmy took physical affection and yet he was with Thomas almost every night. Because of how Jimmy could speak nearly unguarded to Thomas when no one else was around.

It all seemed too good to be true, though. And Thomas had never been good at reading the signs. He’d thought Philip had cared for him more than he did, had thought Pamuk was interested in him, and tried too soon to pursue Jimmy. He’d learned to stop trusting his own judgement- it only seemed to end in heartbreak.

Jimmy, whose ambiguity was practically the main characteristic of his personality, was especially hard to read.

Jimmy looked honestly apologetic. “I’m sorry. I thought you knew…” he mumbled, shrugging one shoulder.

For a moment they were both silent then Jimmy’s brow furrowed and he turned his eyes up to Thomas’s.

“Can I ask you a question?”

 “It’s a bit late to be asking permission for questions.” he chuckled, “But yes.”

“What is it _you_ find attractive about _me_?” Jimmy asked. There was a slight smirk on his lips. This wasn’t like his other questions- it was a tease. Now they really were playing. But Thomas answered sincerely none the less.  

 “Everything.” Thomas answered quickly, decisively. He raised his hand hesitantly to Jimmy’s face, running his thumb along the man’s lower lip.

“I like your lips. And the way you kiss.” sometimes chastely and other times with intense desperation.

He brushed his fingertips against Jimmy’s cheek.

“How your emotions show on your face…” his beautiful face. Like something that could only be described in a novel or a poem.

Jimmy wrapped his own fingers around Thomas’s wrist and pressed a kiss to his palm.

“I love everything about you.” Thomas murmured.

But he was always afraid to put into words exactly how deeply he felt for Jimmy. Would Jimmy feel comfortable being aware of the full weight of Thomas’s feelings for him? So Thomas tried to the best of his abilities not to make a total fool of himself. In his head everytime he even looked at Jimmy he was screaming _I love you. So much. More than I’ll probably ever be able to tell you._

His hope was to express his feelings not all at once maybe but in everything he did for the other man. He wanted every touch and kiss and word he gave to Jimmy to carry a piece of his heart. But he feared sometimes that it wouldn’t take and that Jimmy wouldn’t notice and interpret all of the ways in which Thomas tried to send him his love.

He was caught between wanting to let his feelings be known but also not wanting to say them outright. It was frustrating at times and he often despised the part of himself that craved so fervently for Jimmy to acknowledge him, to give him little signs of affection.

But Jimmy had told him things about himself, had said he loved him, and he took that as permission in a way. _Just one little sign and you’ll give your heart away easily. You’re a fool._ Thinking that had never stopped him from being even more foolish though- not in his past and not now.

“Everything about you, Jimmy.” his voice practically a moan as he pressed his lips against the footman’s neck. “This.”

He moved to run the flat of his tongue against Jimmy’s nipple. “And this.”

Thomas left a trail of kisses against the smooth curve of his collarbone. “Here too.”

Jimmy’s hand wandered between his own legs, softly tugging at his hardening cock as Thomas kissed him but the under butler touched his wrist faintly.

“No- let me…”

 ‘Let me’ was practically Thomas’s catchphrase in bed. Regardless of how good it made him feel, Thomas never wanted Jimmy to have to be the one pleasuring _him_. He always wanted to be pleasuring Jimmy instead. Jimmy’s mere existence was enough for him- the thought of making him do more seemed absurd. And Thomas got the most satisfaction out of making Jimmy happy, making him come for him; so it was well worth it.   

Thomas bent over Jimmy, pressing his lips against the head of his cock in a tender kiss before swirling the tip of his tongue around the slit. Jimmy leaned with his back against the wall, putting one hand on the bedframe to support himself and biting down on his wrist as Thomas slowly and deliberately lapped his tongue against his shaft.

Thomas was usually the one pining after Jimmy while Jimmy remained cool. But Thomas was more experienced than Jimmy in terms of sex. He liked to have Jimmy as much at his mercy sexually as much as Jimmy had him at his mercy emotionally. Some nights he was desperate and could barely control himself from going fast (though gentle, ** _always_** gentle with Jimmy) but others he drew it out, until Jimmy begged.

He took Jimmy’s sac in his mouth, sucking lightly as he pressed his thumb against the slit of his cock and moved it in a circular motion.

“For fuck’s sake, Thomas, please.” Jimmy hissed, twisting his fingers in Thomas’s hair and canting his hips up.

“I’m sorry did you want something from me?” Thomas looked up with a mockingly innocent expression on his face.

Jimmy’s chest rose and fell heavily and his cheeks colored.

“I want everything from you, Thomas.” he said in such a low whisper Thomas wondered if he’d imagined it.

“You already have everything from me, Jimmy.”

He lowered his head again, this time taking the footman’s cock into his mouth entirely and sucking until his cheeks hollowed.

Jimmy’s thighs tensed next to him and the grip in his hair tightened until it was almost painful.

“G-good…” Jimmy choked out, “Because… nngh… I want it all from you, Thomas. I… Fuck, fuck.”

Thomas felt Jimmy in the back of his throat and tensed the muscles there as if he were swallowing.

“NNgh! Oh god, Oh god…. I want… so much…. I want to know everything about you… things no one else knows…” Jimmy moaned.

Thomas felt warmth at his eyes, in the pit of his stomach, and especially in his chest.

“I want you to be all mine, Thomas. A-and… And j-just mine…No one else’s… Ohh…” Jimmy hissed, throwing his head back and jerking his hips spasmodically as he reached climax.

Thomas didn’t swallow- pulling away and bringing his lips to Jimmy, sharing his taste with him as he opened his mouth to a kiss.

“I love you more than anything, Thomas…” Jimmy said, cupping the man’s face in his hands. “More than lemon cakes. Or toy rabbits. Or snakes.” he punctuated each word with a kiss. “Or anything else in the whole wide world.”

Thomas laughed breathlessly and rested his head against Jimmy’s chest- which was smooth and hairless and radiated a light warmth against his cheek and where he could feel the pulse of his lover’s heartbeat and hear it against his ear.

 

**Author's Note:**

> another fic I'm not entirely confident about and took me a while to write. I wasn't sure how to end it and I feel like that's apparent in the writing. Anyway I hope you enjoy! I started out writing this fic for cam because I wanted it to be Jimmy centric but then it spun out of control and ended up really being more about Thomas. 
> 
> I'm pretty insecure about this fic and actually started writing it a WHILE ago and almost scrapped it several times because I felt like I was writing Thomas a little too close to home or that it was too personal.... 
> 
> in the end I get the feeling I tried to fit too much into one fic and it ended up being disjointed. Ah well. I'm hoping to start banging out some more fics really soon when I get on winter break!


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